Next Thing You Know
by That G33Ky Girl
Summary: "I was Special Ops in Iraq. I got out of the humvee to look at what I thought was a dead dog. Next thing you know, I'm Ray Charles."  The whole story of how Auggie was blinded and how he adjusted to his life afterward.
1. Chapter 1

So this is ch. 1 again, with a few changes. I decided I was not so sure of the head trama= blindness as I thought I was, so now it's shrapnel, etc damage. And I'm still hoping that this won't end up too OOC, or be proven wrong by later episodes. Remember, I began this almost immediately after watching the pilot, so there is still a lot to learn about Auggie, and that's why this could be wrong. Not my fault. Nor is it my fault that I'm mildly obsessed with this TV show, lol.

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. Pretty Please?

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Chapter One

Auggie's Point of View

I work for the CIA. People think it sounds like a cool job, and it really is. But it's definitely not easy. And it's only gotten less and less easy. Especially since I'm blind.

I was blinded on a mission several years ago. I was special ops in Iraq, working with a very small team of very capable men. We were, however, very young. We were young and we were bored and I was stupid. We were on our way to the next checkpoint in our humvee, talking, laughing, being… kids. God, we were so young. Too young to know what we knew and way too young to do what we did. But it didn't bother us.

We were just riding along, bored, and we hit something. We all felt the bump and the jolt as we ran over it. Our driver, stopped and we all looked back. There was something in the road behind us. I thought it was a dog.

"Go check it out, Anderson," somebody said, and I hopped out of the humvee. I strolled over to it, dropped to a crouch beside it.

"It's just a dog," somebody said, "C'mon Auggie, come back." I was too curious though, to come back now. There was just something strange about it, something so not right. That's when I saw the grenade. It was tied to the dog's collar, and the pin was gone. I jumped up to run back to the humvee, to shout a warning, but it blew up in my face.

I don't remember anything else myself. I just know what others told me later. I was apparently thrown back through the air, against the side of the humvee. I knocked my head against it, and almost fractured my spine with the way my head snapped back. As it was, I broke four ribs, dislocated my shoulder, and ended up with a very serious concussion. Not to mention the almost immeasurable damage the shrapnel had done to my face, eyes and upper body.

After the explosion, it was all my special ops crew could do to get me alive to the checkpoint, where there would be a doctor with more medical training than the basic knowledge anyone with me had. They tried and tried to wake me up, and keep me conscious for the ride there, knowing how bad concussion victims can get if allowed to remain unconscious, but I'm afraid I didn't make it very easy for them. I almost bled to death on the way there.

I woke up in the dark, which was weird, because I'd always made a habit of keeping at least a small lamp on in my apartment. The thing is, I was afraid of the dark. Still. I had been since I was a kid and had never really gotten over it. So, waking up in completely darkness pretty much freaked me out.

I sat up quickly and reached for the lamp I always kept on the bedside table for quick illumination. At least I tried to. My shoulder screamed out in pain and my chest ached sharply. I stopped halfway up with something that was not quite short of a whimper. A loud one.

Something, somebody moved next to me, and as I heard it, I moved instinctively, lashing out, pinning the person by the throat. Again, I tried to. All I managed to do was fall out of bed onto the floor. My head throbbed so badly I almost didn't hear her speak.

"Auggie!" the voice of the person I'd tried to attack said. I knew that voice. She sounded authoritative, and very familiar. I tried to get up and move away from the person, however familiar she sounded. I knew a number of very dangerous people, a number of whom were women.

"Auggie! August Christopher Anderson!" I knew that tone for sure now; there was no mistaking it. "Stop it now and calm down. It's ok, I'm here." It could only be my sister.

"Alice? What're you- How- Where am I? Why are the lights off?" She took a deep breath. She sounded like she'd been crying.

"Auggie, you-" I heard people outside of the room. "Where am I? What's going on?" I asked again, more desperately.

She cut me off "Auggie, you were in an accident. The explosion-" I pushed myself up onto my feet through sheer desperation. Something pulled at my wrist, hurting a little. Tubes. I headed towards the door anyway, feeling them come out of my arms and not caring. I had to get to the door. There were people out there, one of them could tell me what happened.

I felt wetness dripping down my arm. I had no idea where it'd come from and really didn't care. Alice tried to grab my arms, and stop me, but I didn't let her. Distantly I heard her crying. I reached the doorway by feel, and felt on one side of it, the light switch. I flipped it the other way. No visible response. Then the other. Still nothing.

"Are the lights out?" I asked, fearing the answer because I knew it in the back of my mind. Putting the pieces together hurt, and I still hadn't entirely grasped it yet.

"Auggie," Alice said, reaching out to me, with tears and fear in her voice. "You were in an accident. The explosion, and the shrapnel and-"

"No." I said it simply, like my saying so would make it untrue, "No, no, no."

"Auggie," she whispered to me, reaching for my hands, "You're blind."  
"No, no, I can't be- this-this can't be happening- I'm not. Oh, God."

Realization hit me, and I crumpled to the floor. I lay there in Alice's arms, sobbing wildly, until a nurse appeared and escorted me firmly back to the hospital bed. I lay there, not knowing if my eyes were opened or closed, and not caring, until exhaustion, combined with a strong sedative, erased everything.


	2. Chapter 2

Yay! Ch. 2 finally! I have been trying ever so diligently to work on this, ever since I posted ch. 1, but I may have been distracted by the airing of Episode 2 of this show. Hopefully Ch. 3 won't attack me with writer's block like this one did. Thanks for all the fantastic reviews and for reading! It thrills me beyond belief to open my email and see fifteen emails from all of which are either reviews or people adding this to their favorite stories to me to their favorite authors. You guys (and girls) are mindblowingly awesome.

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Chapter Two

Alice's Point of View

I knew it would be rough for my brother when he woke up. Nothing I could have done could have prepared me for how rough it would be, though. I'd been sitting by him for four days, waiting for him to wake up.

The doctors had already given me the news about Auggie's sight. I still couldn't really wrap my mind around it. I halfway believed that when he woke up, he'd be just the same as usual, laugh at me for being so worried, give me that puzzled look with his keen brown eyes. I really couldn't believe that he'd never give me that look again. that thought started my crying again and I fell at his bedside asleep still trying to grasp the fact that my brother was now blind.

I was abruptly woken up by what I could only identify as a whimper. I was awake almost instantly, remembering how much pain Auggie would be in and how panicked he would be upon waking up unable to see. I opened my eyes to his hand reaching for my throat. I assumed my movements upon waking had triggered his Special Ops reflexes, but his inability to see, as well as his very bruised and bloodied body's inability to move as well as it should have, caused him to miss wildly, and fall out of the hospital bed.

God, he looked even worse conscious than he had before. Every bruise and every stitched up place stood contrasted sharply with his skin. His face was a bit of a mess. There were stitches everywhere and I knew there were about seventy more, hidden by his hospital gown on his upper body. His wide staring eyes, looking for things they would never see again, still haunt me.

"Auggie!" My own voice startled me. I'd kicked into big sister mode without noticing, and my voice sounded commanding, and hopefully familiar. I hated the thought of my little brother waking up in a strange place, unable to see, and not knowing who was near him. I knew that he must be near panic, especially if he hadn't known my voice.

Sure enough, he was trying to move away from me, trying and failing to rise to his feet.

"Auggie!" I said again, trying to get him to listen to my voice and recognize me. I had to get him calmed down before he hurt himself.

"Stop it now and calm down!" I was trying to calm myself down as well. It terrified me how much fear I could see in his every movement. I reached for him silently, not knowing if he wanted my help or not. "It's ok. I'm here."

"Alice?" He finally recognized me. The relief in his voice was audible. "What're you-How- Where am I?" his questions fought with each other to get asked first. "Why are the lights off?"

The question I most dreaded.

"Auggie, you-"

He cut me off again. "Where am I? What's going on?" his desperation made my tears start up all over again.

"Auggie, you were in an accident. The explosion-" He was getting up, heading towards to door. Presumably he wanted to find somebody who would tell him what was happening, and had heard the people outside the door. He'd pulled the IVs out of his arms by going too far away from their stands, I saw. Blood dripped down his arm from where the needles had been. I grabbed for him, but he pushed away my hands.

Auggie stopped when he reached the light switch, positioned to the side of the door. He flipped it down. The lights went off. He flipped it up. The lights came back on. Not that he would know. He'd have seen no difference in his newly permanent darkness.

"Are the lights out?" He asked. There was very audible pleading in his voice. He knew, in the back of his mind, what happened to him. But he couldn't grasp it yet.

He finally let me reach out to him and so I took both his hands. "Auggie, you were in an accident. The explosion, and-and the schrapnel, and-" My voice broke.

"No." It was a statement, a simple denial that held all his hopes in it, "No, no, no."

I finally steadied myself enough to say those hateful words.

"Auggie, you're blind."

"No, no, I can't be-this- this can't be happening- I'm not- Oh, God." He fell then, and I fell right with him, and held him as he sobbed onto my shoulder, just like he had when we were children, and he'd scraped his knee. Only this wasn't a scraped knee and neither I nor our mother could fix it with a Band-Aid and a kiss.

A nurse eventually showed up and, giving me a dirty look (for allowing him to make this much of a mess of himself, I was sure), put my little brother firmly back into his hospital bed. He cried for a while longer, not caring who saw him, I guess, because he could no longer see them. I held his hand until a different nurse appeared and sedated him. His condition was still too poor for them to allow him to get as worked up as he was. And I was left alone, with no one else to hear the sound of my own crying.


	3. Chapter 3

So, I was already in bed, trying to sleep after the new episode of Covert Affairs, when this occured to me. So, obedient to my fickle muse, I jumped up and wrote it. Sorry it's so short, but that's all that came to me for now. Thanks people for reading. :) I am trying very very hard to keep this updated and not disappoint you guys. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. Pretty please?

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Chapter 3

Auggie's Point of View

The next few weeks passed in a blur. A long, dark, miserable, invisible blur. I didn't get out of that hospital bed for the first two. The invisible world around me frightened me too much. It also made me angry. Bitterly, irrepressibly angry.

Why me? Why did this have to happen to me? What did I do to deserve… THIS? I was working, helping people, saving lives, making a difference in the world, and then BAM.

Blackout. Forever.

Needless to say, I spent most of my time in tortured self-pity.

I was told my face was healing well. The CIA had paid for the best plastic surgeons to fix me up, make me as attractive as I was before the accident. Pity they couldn't do something about my eyes.

Alice said they didn't look too bad, with the lie loud in her voice. I supposed that, since I couldn't visually track her, they just stared, never really looking directly at her. The doctors said that would probably always be the giveaway.

Supposedly, I would learn to function again, just like a regular person. I didn't believe it. How could I, when the world of light, and color, and human beauty was now lost to me?

I discovered the other scars later, when I finally got the nerve to attempt an independent shower. I was trying to wash the hospital scent off of me (I'd found my sense of smell was much stronger, after the loss of my sight), and failing when my fingers first hit something. A thick raised line, right under my collarbone, crossed by little wires. I followed it with my fingers, following the line. I found another one, slightly below it, slightly shorter. More crisscrossed the remainder of my chest and stomach. I traced them with my fingers, trying to realize their origins.

It didn't take but a second for the realization to hit me. Scars. I was scarred from the shrapnel that'd hit me in the explosion. I followed each scar, again and again, trying to lessen the amount of space they took up on my body. It didn't help.

Seconds later, still in the shower, I realized that I must look BAD. I also recognized that new note that'd been in my sister's voice. Pity. She pitied me, her brother. Poor Auggie, blind and scarred.

That thought was the one that broke me then. I tried to get out of the shower, but was disoriented and couldn't do it. I slipped and fell out of the shower. I lay there in the floor, whimpering, and feeling very very sorry for myself. I realized I was bleeding from somewhere from the metallic scent of blood in the air, but didn't do anything about it. I was lying in the floor, sobbing, when they found me to take me back to my hospital bed.

I didn't even try to get up for another week.


End file.
